Broadband Internet Installed by Horse

Vermont will soon have statewide broadband Internet access, in part due to the labors of a horse delivering cable to remote areas. Fred and his human Claude Desmarais have lately been working seven days a week on the project:

As Desmarais murmured a signal, Fred tugged a length of cable from a mammoth truck-mounted reel. With a pull, the cable rose to a lineman, who looped it through a "lasher," or a device that slides along the aerial line. By this method, the new cable was linked up to it as Fred ambled along.

The Belgian horse was outfitted with an old-fashioned draft harness and, attached behind that, an iron whippletree, which is a mechanism used for pulling.

Link -via Boing Boing | Photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder